Trivia

Once received a fan letter from a British Lord that read, "You are a credit to the Empire".

He developed his British accent for Magnum (1980) by watching and listening to the performances of Laurence Olivier.

He was a native Texan, thus his British accent in Magnum (1980) was assumed.

While serving in the U.S. Air Force at Carswell AFB, TX, tried out for a local play and discovered he loved acting.

He played the same character (Jonathan Higgins) in three different series: Magnum (1980), Simon et Simon (1981) and Arabesque (1984).

He has appeared in three films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: La dernière séance (1971), Le shérif est en prison (1974) and Chinatown (1974).

His remains were donated to University of Houston for medical science.

Attended the University of Texas at Austin.

Second cousin of Tony Hillerman.

Has two sisters.

Parents are Christopher Benedict and Lenora JoAnn (Medinger) Hillerman.

In his mid-30s, Hillerman said "hasta luego" to his Texan origins to further his fervent theatrical ambitions; he headed Eastward, ultimately establishing himself as the predominant male thespian affiliated with Washington D.C..'s prestigious "O" Street Theater, where he interpreted numerous lead roles, season after season, in the spectacular repertoire of that popular community theater. Then, as the 1960's were coming to a close, Hillerman's brilliant stage career came to an abrupt unexpected end. What happened? Well, while present in the nation's Capitol, Peter Bogdanovich decided to go see a stage show being performed at the famed "O" Street Theater. He was captivated by Hillerman's performance. After the final curtain call, Bogdanovich went backstage to congratulate Hillerman on his performance skills, as well as to offer him a role in Bogdanovich's soon-to-be-produced film The Last Picture Show (1971) to be shot on location in Texas. Thus, Hillerman was going to be heading back home to Texas, leaving behind stage acting to start a new celebrity career performing on film and television. Subsequent to Hillerman's departure, the "O" Street Theater abandoned its initial historic site on "O" Street to create a new performance venue across town, while still retaining its original well-known "O" Street name. Subsequent to that move, and capitalizing on the growing celebrity of its former top thespian, the "O" Street Theater began to add to its own schedule of locally-produced shows, occasional bookings of nationally-known touring performers, such as Anthony Zerbe and Roscoe Lee Browne performing their spirited two-man show "Behind the Broken Words", a collage of 20th century poetry and drama, drawn from works by Auden, Yeats, Richard Wright, Dylan Thomas, E. E. Cummings, Heany, Jeffers, Ferlinghetti, Jean Giraudoux, De Musset, Rostand and Derek Walcott. A stage show that was eventually transcribed onto film by David Stern. Behind the Broken Words (2003).